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Translation:
For the purpose of drawing attention to the act of translating classical
Greek, I have juxtaposed the translations of W. Rhys Roberts and
George Kennedy. Roberts's translation is from the Oxford University
translations of the complete work of Aristotle, an 11-volume series
completed in 1931, and until recently was regarded as the standard
English translation. George Kennedy’s translation (1991) is
gradually replacing that of Roberts as the standard.
On Rhetoric:
A Theory of Civic Discourse [Oxford UP, 1991] is displacing
Roberts’s text). A little knowledge of Greek, however, will
clarify several of Aristotle’s concepts and, thus, help in
acquiring a better understanding of his theory of rhetoric. The
complete text of Roberts’s translation available at Aristotle’s
Rhetoric.
Transliteration:
My present transliteration of the Greek is not entirely accurate.
What you see is what happens when you copy text from a word-processing
program with a Greek font. Because of the current limitations of
character sets available in HTML, transliteration of Greek words
on Web pages must follow traditional Latin conventions (unless one
uses images). I'll get around to making the corrections one of these
days.
Greek Definitions:
My source for definitions is the Greek-English Lexicon, compiled
by Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, 9th ed. (Oxford UP, 1968). “Liddell-Scott-Jones,” or the “LSJ"as it is
usually called, was originally published in 1843 and is the standard
lexicon for ancient Greek (dictionaries for ancient languages are
typically called “lexicons” ). In addition to providing
definitions for Greek words, the LSJ also cites passages from ancient
texts in which each word is used.
TITLE: The “Art” of Rhetoric
The traditional
title of Aristotle’s text is Tekhnês
Rhetorikês, which is typically translated into English
as The “Art” of Rhetoric. Scare quotes are used
with “Art” because English has no single word that adequately
translates the Greek tekhnê.
Also, it's important to keep in mind however, are two passages from
Aristotle’s Metaphysica, which provide a better sense
of how he used this term:
1. “The
animals other than man live by appearances and memories, and have
but little of connected experience; but the human race lives also
by art [tekhnê] and reasonings” (689; 980b).
2. “Now
art [tekhnê] arises when from
many notions gained by experience [empeiria]
one universal judgement about a class of objects is produced” (689; 981a).
BOOK I
Chapter 1
1. “Rhetoric is the counterpart
of Dialectic.” (19;1354a)
counterpart
[antistrophos] turned so as to face
one another, correlative, coordinate, counterpart
Dialectic
[dialektikê] see the page,
Aristotle’s “Art” of Rhetoric and the Idea of Dialectical
Reasoning <http://www.mtsu.edu/~jcomas/rhetoric/aristotle_dialectic.html>
2. “The modes
of persuasion
are the only true constituents of the art: everything else is merely
accessory.” (19; 1354a)
modes of
persuasion [pisteis entekhnon].
This phrase consists of two important terms:
pistis:
means of persuasion, argument, proof. See Solmson’s Note 3 (19);
- entekhnos:
within the range or province of art.
- From
the root tekhnê: an art
or craft, e.g., a set of rules, system or method of making
or doing, whether of the useful arts, or of the fine arts.
3. “Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration,
since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have
been demonstrated.”
demonstration
[apodeixis] in Aristotle’s
logic, a deductive proof by syllogism, opp. inductive proof [epagg
epogvgh]
4. “Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth is likely to
make a good guess at probabilities.” (22; 1355a)
probabilities
[endoxa]: resting on opinion, probable,
generally admitted; from doxa: expectation, notion, opinion, judgment.
In both Plato and Aristotle, doxa
is opposed to epistêmê,
or knowledge, thus setting up a key conceptual binary in traditional
Western philosophy: belief-knowledge. In his lectures on classical
rhetoric, the French critic Roland Barthes associates the ancient
idea of doxa with the modern, Marxist
conception of ideology (see “The Old Rhetoric: An Aide-Mémoire,”
The Semiotic Challenge, trans. Richard Howard (New York:
Hill & Wang, 1988), 11–93; trans. of “L’Ancienne
rhétorique—aide–mémoire,” Communications
1 (1970): 172–229.
Chapter 2
5. “Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in
any given case the available means of persuasion” (24; 1355b)
faculty
[dynamis] power, faculty, capacity.
6. “Of the modes of persuasion some belong strictly to the
art of rhetoric and some do not.” (24; 1355b]
With this
sentence, a more literal translation is more helpful: “As
for proofs [pisten], some
are nontechnical [atekhnoi], others
technical [entekhnoi]."
7. “I call the enthymeme a rhetorical syllogism, and the example
a rhetorical induction.” (26; 1356b)
enthymeme
[enthymêma]: thought, piece
of reasoning, argument. Related to thymos: soul, spirit,
as the principle of life, feeling, and thought; also the heart,
as seat of the emotions. This etymology suggests that the enthymeme,
unlike the syllogism, is constructed from premises that rest on
audience’s belief [doxa] rather
than knowledge [epistêmê].
example
[paradeigma]: pattern, model; precedent,
example; lesson; argument, proof from example.
Chapter 3
"From
this it follows that there are three divisions of oratory—(1)
political, (2) forensic, and (3) the ceremonial oratory of display.” (32, 1358b)
political
symbouleutikos: of or for advising;
often in opp. to biastikos forcible,
violent.
- forensic
dikanikos: judicial, belonging
to trials;
- from
dikê custom, usage, order,
justice, right, judgment.
ceremonial
oratory of display epideitikos:
fit for displaying or showing off, deomonstration; declamation.
Also, the prefix epi–
carries the sense of “place,” or “occasion."
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